I Wish It Could Be Christmas Once A Decade
The Christmas season now seems to commence on or around October 24th.
It is around then that we are first subjected to the brutally
sentimental and abjectly cynical Christmas adverts by the major
retailers; it is around then that the first tawdry tinsel is draped
feebly in shop windows. It is also around then that the first tingle
of anxiety and foreboding start to wriggle into my consciousness. It
is approaching remorselessly and there is nothing I can do about it
and it is going to get far more intrusive.
When young,
I regarded it as a magical time. Although I never fell for the Santa
propaganda, it did seem a period bedecked in bunting and fantastical
with fairy lights. Even rushing down in the morning to prise open a
tiny square on my Advent calendar, revealing a deeply unconvincing
depiction of the birth of Christ, could send me into paroxysms of
fevered excitement. As I grew older, the Christmas period was more
often besprinkled, if not drowned, in oceans of booze; from about the
22nd December to the 2nd of January, I was
mired in a miasma of alcohol fumes. All I had to show for it was the
odd vague, confused memory – an ill-judged remark on the 23rd;
falling down in an alleyway on the 27th; a mysterious,
livid bruise on my inner right arm gained some time on the 29th.
Nowadays, Christmas Day feels like an amalgamation of all the dreary
and uneventful Sunday's of the year. Even the so-called comedy
'Christmas Specials' on the box are usually woefully lame, seeming to
consist of all the jokes considered too unfunny to appear in the
original series.
Can music
save Christmas? It is, after all, the time for the traditional
beloved Christmas carols and the old pop favourites of yesteryear,
resurrected and played to death on the radio and in shops. However,
now that I harbour a far more jaundiced and world-weary approach to
Christmas and all its irksome trappings I find myself reacting in the
following irascible manner to these festive tunes:
“It's The
Most Wonderful Time of the Year” - please furnish me with
incontrovertible evidence for this unfounded and arbitrary assertion
“Ding Dong
Merrily on High” - cease your interminable and overpoweringly
annoying ding-dongery
“Jingle
Bells, Jingle All the Way” - you leave me no alternative but to
inform the local noise abatement officer. Expect a visit shortly.
“The Holly
and the Ivy” - what do you expect me to do with such wretched
foliage? Move along please.
“Christmas
Time, Mistletoe and Wine” - the wine is corked and of an inferior
vintage and the mistletoe is frankly inedible. Poor show all round.
“Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer” - don't bore me with the colour scheme of
this ghastly quadruped's proboscis.
“Hark the
Herald Angels Sing” - I refuse to pay heed to the ceaseless
trumpetings of those cumbrously-winged beings
“Last
Christmas I Gave You My Heart” - I fail to recall you proffering
such a distasteful and almost certainly illegal gift. Socks please
this year
“Once in
Royal David's City” - I expect once was more than enough in that
contemptible metropolis
“Don We
Now Our Gay Apparel” - Not so. I am clad in drab and unostentatious
garb, thank you very much
“All I
Want for Christmas Is You” - the very fact this atrocity is brayed
by Mariah Carey is enough to chill the blood.
“Simply
Having A Wonderful Christmas Time” - highly unlikely at the
McCartney residence, with bracken sandwiches, roast hay and grass
kebabs on the menu. He may also inflict a ditty upon you proving once
again the complete ruination of his voice. Avoid at all costs.
“Little
Donkey Carry Mary Safely On Her Way” - clambering aboard a
malignant, malnourished ass while heavy with child verges on the
criminally negligent. See you in court.
“Oh, I
Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day” - such a longing renders you
unfit to hold public office. Bother us no more.
“Silent
Night” - a vain hope with police helicopters droning overhead, car
alarms screeching, foxes emitting unearthly yelps, revellers
bellowing inanities beneath my bedroom window. Don't be facetious.
“Are You
Hanging Out Your Stockings on the Wall?” - I possess no such
garment and, even if I did, wouldn't put it on public display for
voyeurs to gawp at.
“Fairtytale
of New York” - OK, I'll let you have that one, it's a classic
“In Dulce Jubilo” - Eh?
Despite this
parade of negativity, I still hope that this year's festivities can
actually pass without too much mental struggle and emotional
turbulence. I may regain some of that childhood magic and wonder and
find some joy and happiness. It is possible, especially if I avoid
the Birds of a Feather 'Christmas Special'.